The Kingdom of Niua Simoa - World and Population (base game compatible)

This is a featured upload! It showcases the best talent and creativity available on MTS and in the community.

THE KINGDOM OF NIUA SIMOA for TS3 Basegame.

(EDIT: If you have World Adventures there is now an extended version of this world here: Niua Simoa for WA)

Full World.
Optional save game including a population.
No CC, no store content.
Does not require Riverview.Does require patch 1.8 or later.

Overview

Niua Simoa is a volcanic island, with one extinct volcano (Mount Totara), and one active (Mount Nikau). The island emerged out of the sea at some point less than 20,000 years ago, so it's quite a young landmass. Evenso, a rich coral reef has formed around the island since it emerged, and sand bars have built up atop that reef, forming islands (motu) around the lagoon. There is great fishing in the shallow lagoon, with a fresh water source flowing down from lava formation hills. The main township is small, and there are very few large houses.

This island is a kingdom. Specifically, it is a constitutional monarchy, with the family Tapuwhai as heads of state. There is a Parliament, but its powers are tightly reigned by the royals. Public infrastructure is very poor, there is no art gallery or public pool, however foreign aid and private investment has ensured science, crime and other elements are represented in the economy. A major recent investment is the Waka Village subdivision, an attempt to lure wealthy overseas sims. This is a sim-made island in the lagoon with lots that sell at a very hefty premium, although they provide lovely views to make up for the cost.

There is a farming community on the plains between Mount Nikau and the Pancake Rocks. Here green-thumbed sims can stock up on fruits, veggies and seeds. Please note that if you want a death plant, you will need to find a seed for it. It does not grow on the island. Quite a few veggies are on hidden flavour lots. (Hidden Tombs are available as a functional lot type in Create A World with and without the World Adventures expansion pack).

Populated Savegame - Minimal CC.

For players who want to enjoy the characters who have shaped the island's development, such as the royal Tapuwhai family, I've included a savegame with all of them. Each family is briefly profiled in the comments, so check them out and consider trialing them. Hopefully they're at least better than Maxis-generated townies. More importantly, the extensive lore I've built around them gives a great sense of meaning and history to the island. All sims have flavour text, and so do all families. Their family trees are revealing, and there are ghosts in the cemetery (and elsewhere). Drop your own sims in the midst of another culture, and transform it from there as you see fit!

For instructions on where to place the save game see the Installation tab.

World Stats

Map Size: Large.

Spawners: All the basegame spawners are available, except for some seed spawners. All the missing seeds, however, can be found as plants on community lots. All the spawners are accessible, but players with WA have access to one of two additional rare spawners that are only reachable by zenoporting.

Routing/Layers: Sims can route almost everywhere except steep volcanic terrain, and two small islands that contain nothing except rare spawners accessible elsewhere (you can walk on these islands, but only via zenoportation). The camera routes to the very edge of the reef surrounding the islands, giving good panoramic views, without ugly horizons. The world file is divided into twenty layers. Different kinds of spawners and plant species account for most of them. I've only used 7 textures, so there's no risk I've exceeded the 8 texture limit.

All basegame rabbit holes are included except for the Military one. This is missing to reinforce the poverty and remoteness of the island. There is a military lot in the save game. There is a gym available, several parks (see comments), a fishing hole, a library, and there are several hidden lots as well. Hidden lots, surprisingly, don't require WA.

Most of the housing is from plasticbox's Wee Barnoid series. All of these are linked to in the comments, you can see detailed floor plans at the links. Some of these have been adapted to the terrain, but the floor plans all remain the same. All original lots are profiled in the comments.

Known Issues:
- Medium to low graphics cards will not display underwater terrain, so you won't see the reefs.
- Two sims are missing a trait due to originally having WA traits.
- There is a typo in one of the ghosts' flavour texts, but you won't see this unless you resurrect him.
- Photos taken in Niua Simoa declared themselves taken in "**** Niua Simoa ****".
- There is some footpath distortion beside 1d Hospital Street that I missed. This is repaired in the upcoming WA version. It is a minor, visual glitch visible only when zoomed close in on that lot. Apologies.

You must have the expansion or stuff packs listed below installed to use this custom content. Please see the post text for any exceptions.

This is a multi-part download:

Downloading the World

- Download the four individual rar files entitled kiwitea_NiuaSimoa_basegame.partX.rar to the same folder. You may need to remove the MTS-generated numbers from the start of each file for this to work. Use the filename above as a reference for what the files should look like prior to unzipping.

- Using a program such as WinRAR, extract the file kiwitea_NiuaSimoa_basegame.part1.rar. This will also extract the other related rar files and leave you with one working Simspack.

Downloading the Save Game

- Download the two rar files entitled kiwitea_NiuaSimoaPopulation.partX.rar to the same directory.

- Using a program such as WinRAR, extract the file kiwitea_NiuaSimoaPopulation.part1.rar. This will also extract the other related rar files and leave you with one Sims 3 save folder entitled Niua Simoa + Population.

- See the installation instructions for where to place this folder.

Key: - File was updated after upload was posted

Filename - Tip: You can click the magnifying glass to see the archive contents

channTL has made a "namefile", you can look on, here: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=360297
and I think, he describes how to create one yourself using a tool of his here: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=360093
The problem is, you need thousands and I mean thousands of names to completely replace the ones from the base game. I'm trying to make a german namefile myself at the moment, so I know, how much work it is and I fully understand, if you don't want to do it. But if you still want to, it would be absolutely great. :D

Thanks! And no worries, I can't speak for the other posters but I'm just not at all tech savvy, so the .world file is the easiest solution I seem to have found, without having to mess with the bin files.

It installs and works without any issues for me, and I have 1.8.25 â€“ no WA. I installed it simply by doubleclicking, with the EA launcher, noting special at all. I haven't actually played in it, just scrolled around a bit and looked at the beautiful landscaping, but I can make new worlds from it, save them, open them again .. there is no problem with the files that I can see.

I came across two small glitches with the sidewalks â€¦ I hope you can tell from the pics where this is, one should be obvious (right next to one of the Barnoid houses), the other one (the little disconnect) is somewhere along the path that leads up to the main hill.

I love the completely over-the-top prices of land on the small island! =D I attached a screenshot of that just as a reference on how the reefs look â€“ for me they're displaying (I think? I haven't doublechecked how your screenshots look exactly); I have an 8600M GT with is rather low spec for this game.

Thank you for this upload. It is very impressive, and I'm honoured to have my lots in there. =) I'm also happy to see you've put some gay folks in there without portraying them as sex maniacs or eccentric nutbags (sadly this isn't the norm).

Could someone give me a quick tip on how they install using the .world file, so that I can update the install instructions to accommodate that? It's not a method I've used myself.

Edit: Thanks plasticbox. I caught that first glitch with the roads too late (after I'd uploaded). It's fixed in the WA version, but considering the backtracking I'd have to do to fix it in this, I think it's just an unfortunate imperfection that will remain. The chink in the hill road I hadn't spotted. Looking in CAW they're technically joined, so it won't affect routing, but it is ugly. I'll sort that out in the WA version as well!

That's how the reefs should display. They look a bit ugly from map view, but so does everything. Unavoidable, but they look fine in-game.

I, once again, agree with jay. I cant wait for the uploaded .world! However, the main reason of this post is just to tell you that you are on my Favourite Creators List and Niua Simoa is one of my Favourite Downloads! Thanks so much again, cant wait for Rawr Atoll to be uploaded!

(())Pass the ribbon around if you know someone that has
//\\survived, died, or is living with cancer.

For .world files, dont quote me, but I believe that they are just put in Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Installed Worlds. Then they show up under the drop down when creating a new save. DOnt quote me on this, however, Im not quite sure.

(())Pass the ribbon around if you know someone that has
//\\survived, died, or is living with cancer.

I just tested this world out, it looks really nice and the shape of the whole island really looks natural. The whole vulcano island, palm trees and beach ambience is really great and completely different to the pretty generic basegame worlds. It deliveres a holiday feeling, like you would visit hawaii or some tropical or caribian island, this is great! The athmosphere fits, the island is really inviting and that's a good sign!

The mountains and the vulcano also look very natural and i could see you put the most work and detailfiddling into this particular area. It looks very nice and has a exploration feeling to it, allthough you cannot access every part of it.

What i kinda dislike is the lack of details in the other areas besides the mountain and vulcano. That might be personal preference, how i imagine my perfect world and sure you can always alter details on your own and change details how you like it. I don't know if that's what you aimed for, to create a rough base of the rest of the island and leave this customization to the downloader. But to be honest i wished you put more cool details into the world, or some hidden areas where you have to take a closer look to find them to encourage more exploration. You put a small graveyard onto the beach, which is a nice touch, but there isn't really anything else "special" and it's mostly plain area. More details like this would make the already great island even greater and would give the whole world a lot more value.

I haven't explored every single lot yet, but i keep you updated on my experiences on this world, if i find glitches or something like that.

Feedback is always meant good and your world is fantastic, but i think there is still more potential in it, but i guess you drew the line and left the world in it's current state to get this world uploaded. Keep it up, and i hope you create more worlds in the future, or update this world after you picked the suggestions you liked most, because you have indeed talent for it

Regarding the exact game version required: with "normal" uploads, one can specify the patch version in addition to the game version (base vs. EPs) â€“ but since this is a multi-post upload, it didn't go through the upload wizard, hence why that is missing. I am not sure if it can be edited in after the fact (would probably require some database fiddling).

As far as I'm aware, one needs the 1.8 patch in order to use any custom worlds whatsoever. kiwi_tea, I believe you could just put that near the top of your post in order to make it clearer (should be about as visible as the regular game version flag).

(Oh, I'm happy with how the reefs display =) â€“ I just wanted to show you, since you write in the OP that they don't display on low-spec cards, and the card I have IS low-spec for all I know)

Slipslop, do you mean the savegame when you're talking about Awesome issues? Because the world itself works fine for me, and I have today's Awesome. I didn't try using the savegame though.

For .world files, dont quote me, but I believe that they are just put in Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Installed Worlds. Then they show up under the drop down when creating a new save. DOnt quote me on this, however, Im not quite sure.

Just tested that, doesn't seem to be the case. Is it a matter of editing the resource config to read .world files? Does that work?

Thank you very much Kiwi! I'm so glad your world is finally online! I'm downloading it and I'm sure I'll appreciate it a lot, it looks beautiful! (But, I can't promess that I will play it with the Sims you included as I'm working on my own Sims Genetic Pool since the release of The Sims 3. :op)

Okay, as I can't see how world files are possibly installed as of right now, I'm not going to upload it just yet. Once I've clarified how I should advise people to install it, and IF it's easy enough to manage that it's not going to end in a flood of angry, confused noobs, I'll put it here. Hope that's fair.

Perfectly fair! Ill browse through the internets and see if anything pops up.

@ Plasticbox: I really would love to update, but the newest patch causes me enough graphical issues that a new world wouldnt even be worth playing. It really is that bad. If we cant find any solutions to .world files, I may jsut have to wait it out for a newer, more useful (IMO) patch.

(())Pass the ribbon around if you know someone that has
//\\survived, died, or is living with cancer.

Ok small update on this awesomemod issue, after i got the endlesscycle flagrant error on a new game i removed awesomemod+configfile from the packages folder, and it worked after restart. Now i just put them back in and now it works too, strange. Let's see if it stays that way.

So tested it, awesomemod produces an endlesscycle flagrant error with the savegame only, new games seem to work fine for me.